On multivariate associated kernels to estimate general density functions

Multivariate associated kernel estimators, which depend on both target point and bandwidth matrix, are appropriate for distributions with partially or totally bounded supports and generalize the classical ones such as the Gaussian. Previous studies on multivariate associated kernels have been restricted to products of univariate associated kernels, also considered having diagonal bandwidth matrices. However, it has been shown in classical cases that, for certain forms of target density such as multimodal ones, the use of full bandwidth matrices offers the potential for significantly improved density estimation. In this paper, general associated kernel estimators with correlation structure are introduced. Asymptotic properties of these estimators are presented; in particular, the boundary bias is investigated. Generalized bivariate beta kernels are handled in more details. The associated kernel with a correlation structure is built with a variant of the mode-dispersion method and two families of bandwidth matrices are discussed using the least squared cross validation method. Simulation studies are done. In the particular situation of bivariate beta kernels, a very good performance of associated kernel estimators with correlation structure is observed compared to the diagonal case. Finally, an illustration on a real dataset of paired rates in a framework of political elections is presented. (C) 2017 The Korean Statistical Society. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.